Chair Talk #8

Chair Talk #8

Welcome back for another semester – it’s going to be a busy one!

Campus climate, quality in teaching and scholarship, student retention, designing a fair compensation policy, open access, the make-up of the general faculty – these are just some of the items on the agenda of your faculty officers this semester.  There will be some major choice-points, and it will be our intention to use the Faculty Poll function on our website to solicit faculty opinion whenever possible.  We exhort you to make your voice heard by participating in these polls, and in other activities when and where possible.

Two other activities worth noting.  First, the University Club project continues to move forward.  A steering committee has been established and it is now grappling with membership issues, and other details of how the Club is going to function.  Construction on the suites-only hotel that the Club will sit atop should begin within 6-8 weeks and the Club will likely be opening in the summer or early Fall of 2017.  We continue to sponsor University Club “events” – both late afternoon wine-and-cheese functions and midday lunches, to introduce as many folks in the community to the pleasures of getting together with a variety of colleagues in a relaxed setting at the end of a long day, or for a working lunch.  Over the 5 semesters we have been doing these events a fair number of new collaborations have been catalyzed – just one of the positive advantages of such a Club.

As before, we are issuing a blanket invitation to join us at one of these events – there is a capacity of about 50-55 people, so we need to keep control of numbers – please let me know your top two choices for attending one of these events, if you’d like, and you’ll be put on the list – purely first-come, first-served.  The dates:

Thursday January 21           from 5-7pm

Wednesday February 24     from 5-7pm

Wednesday March 3             from 12-1:30  (buffet lunch)

Tuesday March 29                from 5-7pm

Tuesday April 12                  from 12-1:30 (buffet lunch)**

Thursday April 21                from 5-7pm

All events EXCEPT April 12 will be held at the Vine Annex Building.  The meeting on April 12 will be in the Swede Johnson Foundation Building, Rm 205.  More information will be sent closer to the actual events, for now please just indicate preferences via email to:  nadel@u.arizona.edu.  Note that the first of these is less than 10 days away, so please sign up for this one ASAP.

The second activity is the Faculty Governance Election process.  This year elections will be held for the full slate – Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary, along with the usual selection of Senators and members of the Committee of Eleven, the Committee on Committees and SPBAC.  Recent years have seen a resurgence of activity in the faculty governance domain – and just in time too, since there is a lot to deal with.  We strongly encourage faculty to stand for office and participate in the election in whatever ways possible – at a minimum please take the time to vote.  Full disclosure: Vice-Chair Michael Brewer and I have decided to run for office again, but others should jump in too – governance works best when there are choices.

Hope your semester gets off to a great start.  You’ll be hearing from us.

Lynn Nadel
Chair of the Faculty